From Tactical to Strategical

I started blogging here to learn and practice…for who knew what would come? I’ve been helping the Intel Global Communications Group and others inside Intel better understand how to create stories for Podcasting for almost two years. Prior, many others were Podcasting and sharing their wisdom about using social media — pioneers like Josh Bancroft and few others.

Note: Josh just encouraged me to get my own domain and hosting, so this blog will be movin’ ahead to http://www.kenekaplan.com, if things go well this weekend.

While other groups were experimenting, the corporate PR team started doing audio Podcasts at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2006, working with PodTech. We quickly moved into video Podcasting. We already had broadcast (TV and Radio) writing and production skills, but together with PodTech our team began learning how to share our stories online. It’s much different than TV and radio production — and I’d say more fun!

We learned how to tag, create categories and link to related stories. This helped us build — literally link — one story with the next. We moved from tactical to strategic…or from trying to doing things to actually asserting thoughtful purpose. The purpose of telling good stories that we believed would be interesting to our audiences, with full intentions of sharing stories so they could be shared among any online discussion people might want to have — bloggers, journalists, investors, consumers, clients.

Jump to this month. I’ve seen the momentum growing for a long time, but this month Intel stepped further ahead into social media with our Intel Developer Forum planning efforts. Our plans were rolled straight to the top of Intel. Plans peculated by several teams teaming up resources, ideas and energy to share the experience we’ll be having at IDF. We’ll have more tools and ways to connect and share with our audiences, who will also have new ways to participate with IDF — a gathering of top engeineers and companies from around the world learning how to build future technologies based on the latest Intel chip designs and technologies. Look for more video, live blogging and even livecasting using UStream.tv.

This year I helped compile guidelines and an Intel University course about Social Media. The aim is to encourage every Intel worker to participate and to do so freely and smartly. Guidelines are based on long-standing employee codes of conduct, but we put things into context and provided some do’s and don’ts. Many of us truly believe having many voices participating is better than having a select few. And that group of “many of us” is growing and some are even getting new official roles as evangelists and leaders. These energized people are putting in great work to help bring great social media tools to more people inside Intel, including Intel IT pro and original blogger Jeff Moriarty. This is how we can change and improve things, by getting our people to connect more freely and flexibly with their audiences and communities.

This post is turning into a long tale/tail, but it’s analogous. This week I wrote my first official Intel blog post “Where IT Pros Talk Shop,” which features a video I shot and edited. While working on so many things on so many fronts, it’s good to celebrate victories and steps that show progress. Things that show we’re movin’ ahead! I’d say now things are leapin’ ahead.

Next, much attention will need to go towards communicating and understanding core audiences and audiences that welcome us and value what we can give and take.